Probable Cause Ruling Expected In Hamtramck Women’s Deaths

HAMTRAMCK (WWJ/AP) – A judge is expected to decide whether five men will stand trial in the kidnappings and murder of two Hamtramck women.

The ruling is expected to be revealed in Hamtramck District Court on Friday following a lengthy preliminary examination.

Police said the victims, close friends 22-year-old Ashley Conaway and 18-year-old Abreeya Brown, were forced into a car trunk at gunpoint on Feb. 28 after being abducted from their home on Andrus Street. Their bodies were found almost a month later in shallow graves in a wooded area near 6 Mile Road and Telegraph in Detroit.

A Wayne County Medical Examiner testified that the women were bound with duct tape and shot in the head at close-range.

“The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head. There was a contact entrance gunshot wound present on the right back of the head and then there was an accompanying exit wound present on the left cheek,” Dr. Lee Hlavaty said. “That means that the muzzle of the gun was held in contact to the skin.”

The five men — 26-year-old Brandon Cain, 24-year-old Miguel Rodriguez, 25-year-old Brian Lee, 24-year-old Reginald Brown, 19-year-old Jeremy Brown — are each charged with two counts of premeditated first degree murder, two counts of felony murder, two counts of torture and two counts of unlawful imprisonment.

Authorities say Conaway may have been targeted for telling police that Lee and Cain shot at her nearly three weeks before the abduction.